Analysis of serum proteome profiles in nasopharyngeal carcinoma with different radiosensitivity

The research is endeavored to establish a serum protein fingerprint model for predicting radiosensitivity of nasopharyngeal carcinoma through the analysis of the serum expressed proteins of the pre- and post-treatment nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated with radiotherapy.

Surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry and CM-10 protein chip were used to detect the serum proteomic patterns of 50 nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with different radiosensitivity. Thirty-eight of the 50 patients after the treatment were also studied. Biomarker Wizard 3.01 and Biomarker Pattern 5.01 were used in combination to analyze the data and to develop predicting models.

At the molecular weight range of 2,000-20,000, the software identified an average of 83 mass peaks between radiation sensitive group and radiation resistant group. 11 protein peaks were significantly different. Of the 83 mass peaks, 4 mass peaks (mass/charge ratio [m/z] 2,575, 3,942, 6,117 and 6,778) were chosen automatically to construct a classification tree. The diagnostic accuracy was 78.0 %. M/z 6,117 and 6,778 of the radiation sensitive group after the treatment trended to those of the radiation resistant group.

The technology of surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry can be used to screen and identify differentially expressed proteins associated with different radiosensitivity in nasopharyngeal cancer. It should be a very useful tool for predicting radiosensitivity of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.